and forth between the ports, ceased there for
him in Walter Merritt Emory's office, while the calm-browed Miss Judson
looked on and marvelled that a man's flesh should roast and the man wince
not from the roasting of it.

Doctor Emory continued to talk, and tried a fresh cigar, and, despite the
fact that his reception-room was overflowing, delivered, not merely a
long, but a live and interesting, dissertation on the subject of cigars
and of the tobacco leaf and filler as grown and prepared for cigars in
the tobacco-favoured regions of the earth.

"Now, as regards this swelling," he was saying, as he began a belated and
distant examination of Kwaque's affliction, "I should say, at a glance,
that it is neither tumour nor cancer, nor is it even a boil. I should
say . . . "

A knock at the private door into the hall made him straighten up with an
eagerness that he did not attempt to mask. A nod to Miss Judson sent her
to open the door, and entered two policemen, a police sergeant, and a
professionally whiskered person in a business suit with a carnation in
his button-hole.

"Good morning, Doctor Masters," Emory greeted the professional one, and,
to the others: "Howdy, Sergeant;" "Hello, Tim;" "Hello, Johnson--when did
they shift you off the Chinatown squad?"

And then, continuing his suspended sentence, Walter Merritt Emory held
on, looking intently at Kwaque's swelling:

"I should say, as I was saying, that it is the finest, ripest,
perforating ulcer of the _bacillus leprae_ order, that any San Francisco
doctor has had the honour of presenting to the board of health."

"Leprosy!" exclaimed Doctor Masters.

And all started at his pronouncement of the word. The sergeant and the
two policemen shied away from Kwaque; Miss Judson, with a smothered cry,
clapped her two hands over her heart; and Dag Daughtry, shocked but
sceptical, demanded:

"What are you givin' us, Doc.?"

"Stand still! don't move!" Walter Merritt Emory said peremptorily to
Daughtry. "I want you to take notice," he added to the others, as he
gently touched the live-end of his fresh cigar to the area of dark skin
above and between the steward's eyes. "Don't move," he commanded
Daughtry. "Wait a moment. I am not ready yet."

And while Daughtry waited, perplexed, confused, wondering why Doctor
Emory did not proceed, the coal of fire burned his skin and flesh, till
the smoke of it was apparent to all, as was the smell of it. With a
sharp laug